This is my personal blog which I began in February 2001. I called it The Obvious? when I wrote anonymously and chose the name to reflect the fact I have to overcome my inhibitions about stating the obvious!

Last night I was woken from deep sleep at around 4.00 am by the sound of screeching tires and a loud crash. As I woke I wasn't sure whether I had dreamt the noise or not but as we live on a fast road near a dangerous junction I thought I had better check.

Having put some clothes on I took a look outside and there in the dark, mist and rain was the back end of a sports car with the front buried in a tree and the driver moaning and calling "Someone help" "Get me out of here". I made a quick 999 call then grabbed an old jacket and a torch and ran over to get a better look. There was this young lad, barely conscious with a fair bit of blood on him, both air bags having gone off and the whole of the front end of his Porsche crumpled.

My first thought was that there was a hell of a strong smell of petrol and I needed to get him out of the car as fast as possible. I was wary of moving him in case he was badly injured but reckoned if the car went up he was going to get a lot worse. I had to haul the damaged door open and then tried to lift him. Initially he seemed in too much pain and I was worried that his legs may have been damaged so i stopped. By this time my wife had joined us with a fire extinguisher and my first thought was to get her to keep back in case the car exploded and the kids lost both their parents right outside their front door!

The driver was becoming a bit more active by this time and his legs were obviously OK so with his help I was able to pull him from the car and sit him on the edge of the road. He was talking about his daughter and appeared worried that she had been with him so I did a quick scan around with my torch but there was no sign of any other passengers. The driver soon got on his feet and was agitated and wanting to walk away. A neighbour had now joined us by this time and we both kept persuading him to stay where he was until the ambulance arrived. He started walking along the road and we were following him, keeping him safe when at last the police arrived and moments later an ambulance.

I won't go into detail about the subsequent conversations with the police but we soon headed back to the house and tried to get some more sleep. By the time we got up again the car had gone and the only sign of what had happened was the damage to the tree.

Looking back it all seems a bit dream like and has left me feeling tired and unsettled. I may never get to know how he is or the full story as to what happened but at least he walked away in one piece.